Covert Choices
by Petunia846
Summary: Michael's interactions with Fiona in Dublin lead him to reconsider his commitment to Samantha.
1. Chapter 1

The cloudy-colored tea steamed and swirled in circles as I pushed the liquid around and around with the spoon. It was late afternoon on a damp, gray October day in Dublin and I was waiting for an associate to brief me on an upcoming mission. The bubbling nerves in my stomach were not from concern over the mission, but rather from the associate. She was…complicated. Fiona, or Fi as I'd started calling her lately, was my contact in the IRA. I should not be this nervous about meeting another operative, not after ten years in the spy business, but somehow with Fi everything was different. In her eyes I was Michael McBride, patriotic Irishman from Kilkenny. To those who really knew me I was Michael Westen, patriotic American spy from Miami…though I hadn't been home in almost a decade.

I had been in Dublin a couple months. Before that it had been St. Petersburg…St. Petersburg where I had met my fiancé Samantha. There had been a few documents that needed to be "liberated" from a government office for a project I was working on and another associate had recommended her. Samantha was an oxymoron of sorts. She was stunningly beautiful and she drew eyes like she was magnetic. Yet somehow she also managed to be invisible when she needed to be.

A closed door was merely a suggestion for Sam. The first time we met, Samantha pulled me in for the traditional European kiss on the cheek greeting. It was a truly frigid morning, just this past February. I had been wearing a full-length, down coat, but somehow Sam ended up holding my wallet when we pulled apart. She flashed it in my face with a smile. When we met for coffee later to debrief, we ended up talking more about life than about the mission, and then we ended up back at her place…not talking at all.

With Samantha things moved quickly. By the end of the month I was living at her place. The Baltic winter nights were warmer that way. It thrilled Sam to watch me put on a cover id. She embraced each and every one as if she were meeting me all over again. She was the first woman I didn't have to lie to about what I did for a living and she appreciated that she didn't have to lie to me either. We just had fun gallivanting together through the streets of the former Russian capital.

We were laying in bed one night when she proposed to me. Earlier in the day a job had gotten a little out of control and it looked for a minute like I was cornered. Sam was watching everything from the roof of the building across the street. I'd been teaching her how to use a sniper rifle and with no other available backup, this seemed like a good test of her new skills. Just as the thug kicked me to my knees, preparing for the execution, there was the whooshing sound of the bullet and then I was sprayed with his blood. When we met back at the apartment Samantha already had the shower running for me so it'd be warm.

She smiled brightly and looked me over for any sign of injury. She threw her arms around my neck and laughed. "How was I?" she asked excitedly.

"Your timing was perfect," I told her. "Is that for me?" I motioned towards the bathroom.

"Yes, yes. Get yourself cleaned up."

An hour later we were panting and sweating even though it was probably only 35 degrees outside and our radiator barely heated the corner where it sat across the room.

"I wish I could to do this every night for the rest of my life," she panted.

I laughed. "I think I could get on board with that idea."

She rolled over and looked at me. "Let's do it then," she breathed.

"What?"

"Let's get married," she whispered.

I eyed her carefully. She was suddenly serious, more serious than I'd ever seen her. All I could think to do was laugh. I pulled her into my arms and rolled her on top of me. "Whatever you want," I told her.

But then there was Dublin. When my work in St. Petersburg was finished, Samantha had moved back to Chicago and I went on to Ireland. The job there was only supposed to take a of couple weeks, but those weeks had stretched into months as jobs were want to do. There was a line I could use to call home, but I hadn't used it in a week. The work with Fiona was monopolizing a lot of my time. Thoughts of Fiona were monopolizing a lot of my time.

The tea warmed my body, but the air was still thick with moisture. She was down the street when I spotted her. She wove confidently through the school children, businessmen, and tourists. Fiona was smaller in stature than Samantha but with longer hair that hung down past her shoulders and fluttered independent of her will as the wind picked up.

She was outwardly the picture of femininity. Fiona was fragile and delicate looking…until you met her and found out about the guns, the bombs, and the attitude. I had been having crazy dreams lately. Most of them involved Fiona, myself, and very few clothes. I was starting to get concerned. Here I was, an American operative fantasizing about a trigger-happy IRA explosives expert, while my fiancé waited for me back in the US. It's not like Sam and I had set a date or anything, but still…there had to be something not quite right about what my subconscious was doing.

Fiona pulled open the door to the cafe and the chill settled back into my bones. I nodded at her and then buried my head in the tea again for warmth. She sat down with me and pushed a manila envelope across the table.

"These're the plans for Thursday," she said in a low, husky voice. Her eyes were sparkling at me and I had never felt the force of gravity as much as I felt it just then.

"Anything in particular that I should be payin' attention to?"

Now that she was inside, Fiona was absentmindedly unbuttoning the crimson wool cardigan she was wearing. "Just make sure that _both_ of the managers have left before you start sneakin' around." She reached for my mug and took a long sip of my tea. "That's warm, but that's about all it's got going for it. I've never met an Irishman who'd take his tea in such a revolting manner."

I leaned in to grin at her, "There's nothin' wrong with my taste in tea."

She leaned in as well until we were actually quite close. She whispered, "When you've got more milk and sugar in the cup than you've got tea, then it ceases to qualify as an acceptable Irish cup o' tea."

I swore there was an actual, sparkling twinkle dancing in her eyes. All I wanted to do was lean in an inch more and lay my lips on hers. It would be so easy. Just a quick taste of something authentically Irish.

"If ya met my mother you'd see otherwise," I tried to convince her.

I thought to myself, 'If you met my real mother you'd stop this flirting and run for your life.' There were reasons why I didn't go home more than once a decade.

"Well perhaps I need to make you some real tea sometime, Mr. McBride, and teach you how to treat it."

"I may have to take you up on that."

"Tomorrow evenin' then," she said matter of factly. "Come by my place and I'll show you."

I was slightly taken aback, not expecting a concrete arrangement. "I…well…alright. See you then."

"Good." She grinned broadly, stood up and walked to the door. She looked back and gave me a little wave before disappearing onto the street again.

'This is bad,' I thought to myself. 'This can only be bad.' And yet for some reason, I couldn't stop smiling to myself.


	2. Chapter 2

Fiona was currently living on the third floor of a very old Dublin row house. The red bricks looked like they would disintegrate with the next wind. The mortar looked like it already had. Each step creaked as I made my way up to her apartment.

"Michael," Fiona's voice soon crooned over the third floor landing as I ascended.

"Nice alarm system y'have here," I continued up.

"Sometimes the best things in life really are free."

At the top of the stairs I looked her over. She was wearing jeans and a very tight, very low tank top. In her hand she was holding a huge butcher knife.

"Were you expectin' someone else?" I motioned to the knife.

She looked down at her hand with a bit of surprise. "What? This?" She waved it slowly through the air and I instinctively leaned back a bit. "Don't worry Michael, this is just for dinner. Come on in then."

She ushered me inside. Three locks clicked behind me. There was a gloomy glow to the kitchen area from an overhead fixture that looked like it was from the Victorian era. There were vegetables in various states of deconstruction strewn across the counter and a virtual cauldron of stock was just beginning to bubble on the stove. Fi had decorated the tiny dining table with a small vase of flowers and two candlesticks. Beyond that was an overstuffed couch, a mismatched armchair and an old board propped up on stacks of books serving as a coffee table. The only other decoration in the place was a shelf in the corner, which held an assortment of knickknacks, including a handful of snow globes.

Fiona brushed past me to make her way back to the unsuspecting vegetables. I felt a bit of a jolt as her body briefly touched mine. She smelled faintly of lavender and gunpowder, which was strangely alluring.

"Make yourself comfortable," she motioned into the living room.

"I'm alright," I lingered in the kitchen. "I thought we were just havin' tea."

"Well of course we'll have tea, but I thought you might need a home cooked meal first. You're looking a bit scrawny lately, you know."

I raised an eyebrow and looked down at my chest and arms. "I'll have to take your word for that," I told her. "What are we having?"

"This is the famous Glenanne Irish stew. Passed down through five generations of Glenanne women." She handed me a worn, yellowing paper, but it was merely a list of ingredients.

She was chopping some carrots with the same slow, cautious motion that she used to cut a block of C4. "You usin' famous Glenanne exploding carrots too?"

She frowned at me. I reached for the knife and nudged her out of the way. A minute later I had the whole bunch of carrots evenly chopped and ready to be dumped in the pot.

"Well aren't you the little house wife," she mocked.

"It takes a lot o' work to be this scrawny," I smiled back.

I finished the rest of the cooking while Fiona poured us some wine. Over dinner she told me tales of growing up with six siblings…frogs in beds, practicing her aim with a BB gun, and playing cricket together in the back yard.

"You threw the bat at his head?" I asked in amazement, leaning back in my seat. Tears were stinging my eyes from all the laughter.

"I was just lodgin' a protest," she exclaimed, waving her arms through the air. "I was eight and he was fourteen. What other options did I have?"

"Couldn't you have mentioned it to your parents?"

"Oh, I'd 'ave never lived it down if I'd gone tattling to mum. Besides I've been able to get anything I want from Liam ever since. It was quite the worthwhile endeavor if you ask me."

I chuckled to myself and grabbed the bottle to pour some more wine. This was now our second bottle. Fiona stood to go to the kitchen as I was pouring and in our inebriated states that spelled disaster. She bumped the table and that knocked over my glass which spilled red wine onto my lap and left me pouring more wine straight onto the tablecloth.

"Oh bloody hell," she squealed and ran for a kitchen towel. She rushed back over and kneeled next to me patting my stomach with the towel. I was holding my arms up, the bottle still in one hand, when I started to realize where this would be headed."Fi," I tried to get her attention. "Fi."

I set the bottle down.

"Fiona." I grabbed her wrists.

She looked up at me surprised, "What then?"

"It's okay," I whispered.

"But your pants…your shirt…"

"I don't care."

She looked so beautiful. Her cheeks were flushed and she'd let her hair down earlier. I skimmed my fingers over her hairline and down around to the back of her neck as she looked up at me. We were suddenly both very still, barely breathing. I leaned down to gently brush her lips with my own. It was like some kind of electrical current ran through me. She pushed her lips harder against mine and I pulled her up into my lap. My arms encircled her waist and we didn't care about the wine or the stains or any possible implications any of this might have on our business relationship. She was tracing my ear with her tongue and then I was suddenly wincing as she bit my earlobe, all the while running her hands through my hair. I buried my face in her neck and breathed in the smell of her skin.

The chair protested slightly below us, so I lifted her up and carried her into the living room. "Mmm," she protested and made eyes through an open door into the bedroom. This room was equally sparse. The bed creaked as I laid her down and climbed on top of her. My hands were starting to explore when she rolled out from under me.

She stood up off the bed and pulled her shirt up over her head, discarding it in the corner. I watched as she shimmied out of her jeans and flicked them under the bed with one foot. She walked slowly closer to me again. "You too, Michael," she said. "Let's go." I sat now on the edge of the bed and she came to stand between my legs. Her fingers nimbly made their way down the buttons of my shirt until it was gone before I knew it. She was reaching next for the button at my waist but I decided things shouldn't be that easy for her. I held her arms, wrapped her with my legs, and swept her up and over the edge of the bed then landed crouched on top of her.

She was grinning wildly, her eyes glittering up at me. "Now, Michael…be careful," she whispered. "You don't know what you're gettin' yourself into here."

I smiled down at her face, cradled in my hands. "I can take care of myself," I assured her.

One finger stroked my bottom lip. "You've been warned," she murmured.

I leaned down and kissed her. I needed to taste her and breathe her in. I needed to touch her or I was afraid I might just cease to exist. My pants were soon scattered across the floor with the rest of our clothes and I didn't care that they'd be ruined before too long. Her hands grasped my shoulders and pulled me closer, settled my body on top of hers. There was a tension pulsing through me, more intense than anything I'd ever experienced, not with past girlfriends, not even with Samantha. I was burning on the inside and Fiona's touch was the only thing that could soothe it.

"We never had our tea, y'know," I whispered in her ear before kissing a line down her neck.

She shifted beneath me, breathing heavily now. Her hips started pressing against me instinctively. "Oh Michael, I'm sure there'll be time for that later. Don't you worry."

I stretched and sat up in bed to push the pillows up against the headboard. I let my toes peek out from the bottom of Fiona's duvet. I closed my eyes blissfully and tried to relax. It was so late now that it could be considered early.

There was a bit of crashing and banging around from the other room.

"You alright in there?" I called out.

"Fine, fine…no problem," Fiona's voice answered me distractedly.

What had happened earlier was…amazing, unlike anything I'd ever done. And yet here I am, an American spy stretched out in the bed of an IRA operative. If I needed to, I could explain that being close to Fi will help me get closer to the rest of the organization. I could explain that the hormones and pheromones of sex would cloud Fiona's mind enough that she'd stop paying attention to my little idiosyncrasies that tend to imply that I might not be who I say I am. If I needed to, I could certainly justify this relationship as a vital part of the mission. And the most extraordinary thing is that if I needed to, I could explain all of this to Samantha and she would understand. She would probably have a similar story to tell me to soothe my guilt. We were so much alike, Samantha and I, it would be fine.

And yet, part of me knew it wouldn't. Those excuses would all be lies. I could convince everyone else, but could I convince myself? I had wanted this…just desperately desired to possess every inch of her.

I heard Fiona's footsteps and then she filled the doorframe. She was wearing my shirt. The pink-stained bottom hem brushed against her knees. Her hair fell in unruly tendrils after our earlier exploits. In her hands she carried a tray loaded up with a delicate looking ceramic teapot, two matching cups and saucers, a small bowl of sugar, a small creamer and some spoons. She walked over to me and pulled at the small legs on the underside of the tray, arranging it carefully in the middle of the bed, and climbed in after it.

I smiled at her with amused eyes. She smiled back almost wickedly.

"Now, Mr. McBride, I promised you a lesson in tea."


	3. Chapter 3

Fi and I sat nervously enjoying our evening tea on the patio of the pub across the street from the target. We had finished supper earlier and had been sitting, fingers entwined, for an hour now, waiting for the second manager to leave and lock up the bank. 'It's for the cover id,' I kept thinking to myself. The delicate, soft fingers touching mine had been all over my body the night before. But that was all for the cover. I needed Fiona close to Michael McBride in order to infiltrate deeper into her organization. The more often I tried to convince myself, the less I believed it.

Fiona picked at the slice of cake we were sharing as an excuse for lingering. The sun was setting, and our waitress came by and set a little oil lamp on our table. Fi groaned quietly, sighed, and leaned her head against my shoulder. "This is by far the worst part of the job," she grumbled.

I poked her arm with my fork out of boredom. "There'll be plenty of excitement soon enough," I reminded her.

"I certainly hope so," she complained.

"There," I whispered, indicating the alley next to the back with my eyes.

"Finally," she breathed. "You ready, Michael?"

"This isn't my first stroll around the block, Fi. I'll be fine."

I stood up and tossed my backpack over one shoulder then leaned down to kiss her cheek. She turned her head at the last minute so that my lips hit hers. The sudden contact took my breath away momentarily as it brought back memories of the night before. "Fi," I murmured into the kiss. "I have to go."

"Just be careful, Michael."

I backtracked around the block, then made my way down the alley to the back entrance of the bank. The information Fiona had given me last week was more than adequate for disarming the security alarm…piece of cake. The documents I needed were upstairs in one of the manager's offices.

As I made my way through the maze of cubicles to the stairs, I let my mind drift back across the street to Fi. I needed to decide whether this thing with Fi would always be just between her and Michael McBride or whether it could ever be more than that. I don't know what it was, but with Fiona there was just something that made me feel more alive. Fiona brought out a side of me that I never really knew was there. She was like this flame, a small flame sometimes, but a flame that burned tirelessly and snuck into little corners of my heart and mind and illuminated things that had been hidden away for years. She was _so_ not like Samantha. With Samantha it was lie upon lie, all acting and stagecraft. It was fun, but it was never…real. With Fi it was grounding, she was some kind of lightning rod or something. All I wanted to do was lay in her arms and tell her my life story…the real story, from the first time my father gave me a bloody nose, to the time I was arrested at 11 for stealing a car, to the start of my career and that time I made my handler Dan laugh so hard that Sprite came out his nose.

The manager's office only had a simple tumbler lock, the kind I could pick in my sleep. Once inside I took a moment to glance out the window at Fiona across the street. She had ordered some more tea and was flipping through a gossip magazine. The flicker of the table lamp illuminated her siluette.

I sighed and looked around the room. There was a small safe under the desk. "Bingo."

I almost had the combination when my phone rang. I jumped. I pulled it out and looked at the number. It was Fi. In the middle of an operation that could only be bad.

"Yeah Fi," I answered, starting to toss my things back into the backpack.

"You're goin' have company here soon," she breathed into the phone.

"What's going on?" I asked, probably sounding somewhat frantic.

"Don't know. Must have been a silent alarm in the office we didn't know about. Our man just pulled up in front with two hired guns. He'll probably leave one out front and take the other one around to the back entrance. You'll be stuck."

I stood in the shadows of the office and looked down at the street. Fiona was right…these were big guns, and they were probably carrying guns too. "Fi, I need an exit…"

"I know, I know…I'm on it. Go out the side entrance in three minutes."

"Will do." I shoved the phone in my pocket and slipped back out into the hallway, locking the office behind me. By the time I was back in the lobby I could hear screaming across the street. I slipped out the side entrance and reset the alarm. I made my way back out towards the street. There was still screaming and I could now hear the faint approaching sound of sirens.

The scene before me was lit bright with orange flames. The table where Fiona and I had been sitting earlier was engulfed in fire. The flames coming off the tablecloth were just about to catch the fabric umbrella on fire as well. The bank manager and his men were just standing around their car staring across the street in shock. The umbrella went up in a ball of flames just as the fire truck pulled around the corner.

I strolled casually down the street, right in front of the bank. At the edge of the crowd I spotted Fiona, pretending to be a curious passerby. She looked over at me and smiled. It was a smile that could make a prisoner indict his own mother if he thought that would get him away from Fi. The firemen were pushing the crowd back as the fire had jumped to a neighboring table. Fiona glanced at me one more time, screamed a blood curdling scream for effect, and then turned and walked purposefully down the street and away from the chaos.

All I could do for a moment was stand there at the corner and marvel at this speck of a woman I'd only know a month, but who would light a table on fire for me. As she walked away without looking back, I knew this was more than just part of the cover. I reached for the phone again. Fiona would be fine, but I needed to call Dan. I needed to go back to the States, just for a day really, but I knew now that I needed to go back and take care of some personal business before I got too deep into things here.

"Yes hi, this is Michael Westen. I need to speak to Dan Siebels…Dan, hi…we need to talk…"


End file.
